The true sign of a successful weekend for a daddy is when you can fix something to the satisfaction of a fashion/appearance conscious 7 year old.
Lucky for me, the problem doll this time is Frankenstein’s daughter, Frankiestein, and so a pin and cup-hook to repair her knee is, frankly speaking, desirable.
#dollsurgery
I’z jus’ tryin’ ta get da peanuh budder owt.
I only put the rusty hammer in the bowl to displace enough solution to fully submerge my “ruined” pliers.
But now the hammer provides the best visual representation for just how effective the solution is.
Oh, and my pliers work again too!
I was winning this morning! 🙂
15-20 mph wind at my back, 55 degree (F) temps, breathing good, and I chose the sidewalk.
I thought it would get me around a stranded bus faster.
It did, but then I spent 20 min changing the flat I received from a freshly broken half rack of beer bottles somebody pitched on the sidewalk.
Kudos to my Schwalbe Durano Plus tires once again.
Total slice through the tread body with a piece of glass the size of my fingernail and only a pinhole in my tube.
I can ride the tire for a while, but I’ll need a new one for safety sake.
TheWeeOne liked this picture I took of our Valentines Day trappings.
She named it “The Dream Before Valentines Day”.
Last night TheWeeOne and I went to a Daddy Daughter Dance – but we made it a Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance since I took her out for her favorite rice at Pabla’s Indian Cuisine first.
The Community Center staff really knew what appealed to little girls; crowns on the table for decorating, Kool-Aid in a fountain, and teensy corsages to pin on…not many stayed on (it was mostly Dad’s you know).
Wee made her crown first, and though the music was playing, nobody was dancing. We changed that.
Emma and I broke the ice on the dance floor.
First one’s on, last one’s off – 90 minutes with nothing longer than a sip of Kool-Aid break.
In the past 10 years I’ve lost touch with large swaths of Pop Culture – but I do hear a fair amount of pop songs, some of them I even like (gasp). This night – that paid off. I knew every song, some of the words, and most of the important dance bits to go with them.
Execution – probably left something to be desired – but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Some snippets:
When “Single Ladies” came on Emma grabbed her little gold ring back from me and lip-synched into the mirror, pointing to her finger “If you like it then you should’a put a ring on it!”
She acted out some video or other (perhaps it was in her mind?) by having me spy her from across the room while she fixed her hair in the mirror, then I was to come over and ask her to dance, we’d dance together, then when the song was over we’d take up our previous spots “as if it was all just a daydream.”
I had to pump my fist down, in a ‘shoot – I was hoping that was real!’ motion.
First of all, I’m reminded of a three year old I used to know whose repeated re-enactments of the Prince/SleepingBeauty reunion scene caused me to wonder if there was anything to this whole nature vs nurture argument. I concluded then, and it’s been reinforced now, there is a WHOLE LOTTA nature.
Regardless, there will be some love-struck on my doorstep someday and I will be ready with a very stern warning,
Uhhhh, she’s a bit of a romantic.
Last night, I began my homeschooling night with TheWeeOne thinking it would be about drawing.
But she wasn’t interested – she wanted to play Bork Uncle or UpHigh.
While I drew the line there (BorkUncle is not schooling) I insisted that we didn’t have to be “boring” (her word).
She downshifted into
Let’s watch a moomie?!
and I countered with
Only if it’s instructional.
Some negotiations ensued and I drew the line at “learning about Vampires.” while she amazingly drew the line at “Creating clothes for her Vampire dolls.”
We wouldn’t budge.
I tried very hard to keep us in the realm of drawing…but I should have recognized her subtle shifts into moomies when 30 minutes later we had co-steered ourselves into watching Flamenco Dancing and Charlie Chaplin YouTube videos. Argh.
I did manage to right the ship (after I recognized she needed dinner) by asking a no-right-answer question.
What does The Scream, Flamenco Dancing, and that silent film all have in common?
After we discussed what “in common” meant – sheesh it is hard on a teacher when the pupil doesn’t have the necessary language eh?
We worked through that one and came back to the real question and with some prodding she agreed they were all Art.
Big breakthrough.
The rapid-fire discussion which followed delineated examples clearly NOT art…mountain climbing, baseball, food, money, etc.
What struck me, and the point of this post, is just how easily she zeroed in on what exists in the world which qualifies as ART – even without word-language…
What is ’emotion’?
And her resolutions lined up pretty well with what I would consider some fairly common assertions about art – at 6.
There is a very long conversation buried in this “discovery”, that even a 6 year old can discern very well what “Art” is, and further – even if the lines an individual 6 year old draws between subjects differ from other individual 6 year olds – at 6 she appears to be VERY reliable, consistent, and discerning.
There is an entire wing of Philosophy devoted to the subject (Aesthetics) and somehow at six one finds themselves knowledgeable enough to be on the front of that discussion? I think Ethics, Epistemology (maybe), and things like Physics and Mathematics would be hard pressed to say the same thing about their esoteric corners of conversation.
I took this while she ate some dinner and she winced…
probably NOT art.
But once she had learned how to do this to it…
yep – IS art.
If you have a young one in your immediate vicinity – give yourself an hour – allow the conversation to range far and wide and probe their understanding of art…I’d love to hear what you hear.
And besides that, it is fun.
Some dads mayn’t ever let it on their fingers.
Others, not out of the house.
I’m not passing judgement on them but…
I decided to wear it with pride.
As a badge of honor.
A dark blue, metal flake, star magnet, badge of honor.
The Mermaids needed a little offsite activities – the Seattle Children’s museum fit the bill on this day.
blief 